Latest news on Gilgo Beach murders: Long Island police search storage unit connected to Rex Heuermann

For around two decades, the sands and marshes of Long Island’s Gilgo Beach kept a dark secret.

A killer or killers was at large, luring in escorts and sex workers and brutally murdering them.

Body after body was dumped along the shoreline, hidden for months and even years without being discovered.

Then, in 2010, a chilling 911 call made by a woman in fear for her life led police to search the area.

What they discovered was far more horrifying than anyone could have imagined.

Back in April 2011, criminologist Scott Bonn created a profile for the Gilgo Becah serial killer for The New York Times.

He said that the killer was likely a white man with a family, who was educated and in professional work and lived on the South Shore of Long Island.

Following Rex Heuermann’s arrest, this criminal profile has resurfaced as it shows an uncanny resemblance to the accused killer.

Mr Heuermann is a married father of two, white male, an architect with his own firm in Manhattan and lives in Massapequa Park in the same home he grew up in – close to the shores of Gilgo Beach.

“When I heard the news yesterday, I sort of had to smile to myself because it was pretty much what I had predicted,” Mr Bonn told The New York Times on Saturday.

DNA results came back on 12 June with a 99.96 per cent degree of accuracy.

JonBenet Ramsey’s brother has said that he believes her killer has the “same bio” as the Gilgo Beach serial killer as the major breakthrough in the Long Island case has raised hopes that her murder can also be solved.

“No criminal record but you can’t hide this level of darkness. It will manifest itself in other areas of your life. Try as you might you can’t blend. JonBenet’s killer will likely have a similar bio. #psychopath,” he tweeted about the news of Rex Heuermann’s arrest.

In a follow-up post, he spoke of his optimism that improvements in law enforcement will also lead to an arrest in his sister’s case after all these years.

“LE has come along way since 1996. Turf wars are becoming a thing of the past with partnerships becoming standard operating procedure. This new approach just might net JonBenet’s killer,” he tweeted.

A trove of firearms has been seized from the home of suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann.

Over the weekend, investigators combed through the married father-of-two’s home in Massapequa Park in connection to the unsolved murders looking for evidence of the killings.

At one point, officers were seen removing a plastic tub full of rifles from the family property.

The Manhattan architect had legal permits for 92 firearms.

A source told The New York Post that investigators are looking to see if the accused killer took any trophies from his victims.

“We’re just going through his house looking to see if there’s any evidence. If he has any trophies,” they said.

Rex Heuermann, 59, was arrested on Thursday and charged with six counts of murder in connection with three of 11 unsolved killings known as the Gilgo Beach murders.

Suffolk County district attorney Raymond Tierney wrote in a court filing that the sister of victim Melissa Barthelemy received “taunting calls” near to Mr Heuermann’s office in Midtown Manhattan after her disappearance in July 2009.

Mr Heuerman also used the phones of Barthelemy and another victim Maureen Brainard-Barnes to check their voicemails after they disappeared, the district attorney wrote while requesting the suspect be held without bail.

Mr Heuerman has been charged with first and second-degree murders of sex workers Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22; and Amber Costello, 27, and is considered a “prime suspect” in the murder of Brainard-Barnes, 25.

The Independent’s Bevan Hurley reports:

Long Island police have been searching a storage unit in connection to suspected Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann following his bombshell arrest on Thursday.

Suffolk Police Officers executed a search warrant at a single unit at Omega Self Storage in Amityville late on Sunday night, according to News 12 Long Island.

Police confirmed to the local outlet that the search was in relation to the investigation into the architect’s alleged connection to the murders of at least three women.

The storage unit is just two miles from the married father-of-two’s home in Massapequa Park.

Neighbours congregated in shock in Massapequa Park on Friday after the arrest of long-time resident Rex Heuermann in connection with the Gilgo Beach murders, looking on as police loaded and hauled away a black pickup truck and another large, tarped-over piece of evidence on flatbeds.

The Independent’s Sheila Flynn reports: